CAMHS in Times of Austerity – by Veruca Salt.

reposted here with kind permission from Veruca Salt who blogs HERE.

Mind Uncut (no relation to the charity Mind) asked me to comment on the effect of the public sector cuts on CAMHS, so here goes.

As I mentioned last week, the most vulnerable jobs for the chop are those that are seen as highly specialist. Say, a systemic and family psychotherapist or an eating disorders nurse specialist. It’s more attractive to hire a jack-of-all-trades generalist – say, a CPN or a clinical psychologist. Patients can still be seen by those clinicians, but obviously there’s a drop in the level of expertise available. Remember, that’s not just expertise in terms of what can be offered to patients and their families, but also of who the generalists can turn to for advice if they get stuck.

When people leave their jobs, there’s a nervous wait to see whether the post will be re-advertised, or just disappear into the ether. If it is re-advertised, sometimes it will be at a lower pay band – say, band 6 instead of band 7. Sometimes this can result in the post not being filled because those with the skills to apply for the job have no incentive to do so. Why take on more responsibility if they’re not going to pay you any more?

As the cuts bite deeper, there’s more pressure to stick to a narrower definition of who CAMHS can offer a service to, and to do more signposting to other services. A child has a mentally ill mother – could they be seen by a young carers service instead? Somebody just wants talking therapies – why not point them to a school counsellor? Which is fine until you remember that all those other services are also dealing with shrinking budgets.

With increasing pressure to do more signposting, there’s more risk of services playing pass-the-parcel with their clients. This tends to happen regularly between CAMHS and social services. CAMHS insist it’s a child-in-need issue. Social services say no it’s not, it’s a mental health issue. The two services argue, letters go back and forth, and the child is left waiting for somebody to provide an actual service.

Occasionally we hear that we’re supposed to do more with less. I suspect in reality we may well just wind up doing less.

C’s Story – It’s the most vulnerable who are the hardest hit.

Almost immediately after we posted about MindUncut a woman from the North-West, who I’ll call C, got in touch. She lost her job as a therapeutic arts teacher key-working with 12 people who needed higher level care as well as helping people return to work and education after long periods of being mentally ill. Despite two key-workers at the already understaffed centre having their jobs cut thousands were spent installing electric doors and new lighting in the managers’ office. Renovation of the communal areas for service users was neglected.

The centre, which is partly funded by the local council and partly funded by the NHS, now charges £15 meaning those with the highest level of need can no longer attend. Others, understandably, won’t pay for a substandard, understaffed service. 

C says her main worry is for the vulnerable service users – ‘If they cannot afford access to the centre some of them won’t get one hot meal a week, many won’t shower and the ability to socialise and feel confident just will not be there for them.’ In addition to this those who previously attended the centre working towards recovery may regress or become sick more often. This will place yet more pressure on hospitals and the social service, both of which are already being stretched to the limit.

If you’d like to share how the cuts to mental health services and charities have affected you please contact MindUncut at minduncut@hotmail.co.uk

MindUncut – Defending Our Mental Health Services.

Our mental health services are taking a battering.
27 Child & Adolescent Mental Health Service providers have responded to Freedom of Information requests and admitted they’re making cuts, some of up to 25%. Early Intervention treatment, which can prevent relatively mild mental health problems from progressing into life dominating illnesses, are being replaced with “sticking plaster” quick fix treatments which can actually hinder sufferers and charities which provide vital support for sufferers and information for their families are having government funding stripped away from them.

We can not take this sitting down. 1 in 4 people will be affected by mental health problems at some point in their life time. Although not all these people require or seek treatment there is a good chance you know an ex, current or future service user.

The help these services provide is invaluable, potentially even lifesaving. They can help people get back to work, return to education (I owe the fact that I’m returning to sixth form next year largely to the dedicated work my psychologist has been doing with me) and teach techniques that help sufferers cope with the effects of mental health problems.

We’re taking steps (literally) to demonstrate our anger at the cuts to our NHS services and charities which do such extensive and amazing work to help some of this in society who need it most. That’s why we’re organising the MindUncut Mental Health Bloc at this October’s demonstration outside the Tory Party Conference. It’s important we show the Tories making the cuts and those orchestrating them that we will not stop fighting the cuts.

Join us outside Manchester Town Hall @ 11am on Sunday, 2nd October where we will march as part of the already organised demonstration. Regardless of age, gender, race and religion we need you!

Anna & Mickey,
MindUncut
@magiczebras & @thebowlerhatmag

If the service or charity you use or work for is facing cuts or you would like more information, please get in touch via minduncut@hotmail.co.uk, you can ‘like’ our Facebook page, follow & use the hashtag #minduncut and the Facebook event is here: http://bitly.com/qOPbql+

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